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Show HN: A 2-row, 16-key keyboard designed for smartphones
Mobile keyboards today are almost entirely based on the 26-key, 3-row QWERTY layout.
Here’s a new 2-row, 16-key alternative designed specifically for smartphones.
- teach 11mo agoYou might want to throw a CDN in front of this -- the site is realllllly struggling and seems very complex under the hood. Cool idea though.
- mgr86 11mo agoI threw it at archive.is for them. https://archive.is/gW1rO https://archive.is/gW1rO
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoThanks for archiving it ^^ really appreciate the help!
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoThanks for letting me know! The website isn’t optimized yet, so it’s running slower than usual. I’ll work on improving it soon. Really appreciate your interest!
- MontyCarloHall 11mo agoSmartphone keyboards dynamically adjust the "hitbox" of each key based on what's previously been typed and overall letter frequencies of the language. So when typing "Paris is the capital of Fr..." [*], the A key becomes much easier to hit than its neighbors. Fun fact: back in the day, when this tech was less refined, certain letter contexts made the hitboxes of some keys effectively nonexistent [0]. I wonder if an approach like KKeyboard with larger but statically combined keys leads to faster typing than the current approach with smaller but dynamically "combined" keys. [*] In reality, the context is modeled using a simple Hidden Markov Model with a much smaller effective context window that could not associate "Paris" and "France." But you get the idea. [0] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/impossible-to-type-okee-or-oket-on-iphone.664456/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/impossible-to-type-okee...
- quamserena 11mo agoOmg I thought this was just me. How do I turn this off? On iOS, this has been bugging me for a long time.
- devmor 11mo agoI would love a way to turn it off as well, this is the source of the majority of my annoying typos.
- sushisource 11mo agoSeriously this explains so much. I thought I was going crazy, or just becoming an old man who can't type on a phone any more.
- shakna 11mo agoThere is no builtin setting in iOS to disable it. However most 3rd party keyboards don't have it, as implementing it without OS support is a huge pain.
- nneonneo 11mo agoWhy is it hard? In principle you render an image instead of discrete buttons, and do your hit testing manually. Sure, it’s more annoying than just having your OS tell you what key got hit, but keyboard makers are doing way fancier stuff just fine (e.g. Swype).
- shakna 11mo agoApple's keyboard receives more information, to put it simply. It doesn't get told that a touch was at a particular point, but the entire fuzzy area. Allowing you to use circular occlusion and other things to choose between side-by-side buttons and override the predictive behaviour when it is the wrong choice. A third-party maker gets a single point - usually several in short succession, but still it requires more math to work out where the edges of the finger are pressing, to help determine which direction you're moving. So most just... Don't.
- yjftsjthsd-h 11mo agoI'm not following. * Does this still expect you to hit every key but some of them need multiple taps? * Are they doing fancy autocorrect-like magic to decide which letter you meant, and if so why use this instead of taking it one more step and using http://minuum.com/ http://minuum.com/ ? * Or is it something else?
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoYes, all characters are entered with tap or double-tap, and it also supports simultaneous taps as an advanced option. It’s fully local, with no autocorrect or prediction. Minuum compresses QWERTY into one row, but QWERTY mini keeps the QWERTY structure to preserve the familiar typing experience. Thanks for your interest!
- yjftsjthsd-h 11mo agoSo like, to type "x" a person would hit the dx key twice? I guess that's better for precise typing, but for normal prose it's probably faster+easier to just type blindly and let the machine figure out what you mean.
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoBoth with- and without-autocorrect have their pros and cons. This layout could also work well if predictive features are added later.
- morsch 11mo agoI mean for one thing Minuum is dead, the play store link is 404 and the last time I tried it it didn't work perfectly with recent Android versions. Which is sad because it was great when it was still maintained.
- nullpilot 11mo agoI believe Minuum is the only app I ever paid for on the Play Store, after having followed it since the Kickstarter campaign. It was the only option that made typing on a small touchscreen feel mostly frictionless for me, contrary to the varying degrees of frustration of other options. As a result, I now hardly type on my phone.
- highwind 11mo agoI like it but I wish I can change the size of the keyboard. Buttons are too small on my phone.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- ugh123 11mo agoSeems like there's 25% wasted space at the bottom for the language globe icon that could be used for something useful
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoGood point. I’m not sure why Apple designed it that way either. Anyway, the globe icon area is required by the OS, so its size can’t be reduced. Thanks for the feedback!
- 2earth 11mo agoNice idea, I might try it! I noticed "copyright info goes here (c) 2025" - which you might want to update!
- toast0 11mo ago> I noticed "copyright info goes here (c) 2025" - which you might want to update! It's still 2025, so that's fine :P post-Berne Convention, there are no forms required for copyright protection to vest, merely fixing the work upon a medium is sufficient.
- Xiol 11mo agoSo vibe coded slop that clearly hasn't been reviewed is going to have access to all my input. Interesting idea, but that's a pass from me.
- schainks 11mo agoReminds me of the abominable parking ticket machine keyboards in Rome (https://www.wantedinrome.com/i/cover/storage/uploads/2018/12/rome-bus-tickets-parking-meters.jpg.webp https://www.wantedinrome.com/i/cover/storage/uploads/2018/12...)
- stevage 11mo agoI don't really understand how people manage to type with two thumbs while holding their phone securely. I use my left thumb and my right index finger, with my right thumb supporting the base of the phone.
- wffurr 11mo agoI use my left pinky to hold the base of the phone. Lots of people with bigger phones use one of those stick on things on the back and hold it with their index and middle finger.
- rtkwe 11mo ago+1 for the pinky phone shelf. Worked better when phones were smaller and lighter now I have a popsocket on the back and hold it either between the middle and index or middle and ring depending on what I'm doing. Sometimes with middle and index the pinky comes out again to stabilize the phone too.
- AAAAaccountAAAA 11mo agoLooks nice. Reminds me of MessagEase[1] and clones, such as ThumbKey[2]. I use the latter for my mobile text input needs. However, that method is sometimes prone to typos, since one key may have up to 9 different characters assigned to it, and it is easy to swipe slightly wrong way. QWERTYmini could be better in that aspect, since there are only 2 characters per key. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagEase 2. https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
- pshirshov 11mo agoAlso this: https://codeberg.org/natkr/flickboard https://codeberg.org/natkr/flickboard
- mmh0000 11mo agoI really dislike how iOS handles dictation as a keyboard feature. I want to try this keyboard, but I also don't want to give up dictation. If I have to switch back to the iOS keyboard to enable dictation, that's just enough friction that I'm not going to move to something else.
- tomtomistaken 11mo agoLooks nice. Can I swipe write with it?
- chente 11mo agoReminds of T9 texting and I did like T9. I'll have to try this.
- axiolite 11mo agoI call BS. NOBODY ever LIKED to type on T9. Maybe you well-tolerated it. Maybe you got reasonably good at it. But not LIKED. There's a reason text messaging really took over when smartphones came in... because T9 was no longer needed. It was objectively awful.
- chente 11mo agoMy brother is Christ, call BS all you WANT. This is T9-esque and we have comments in here being interested in going away from full keyboards on their phones in favor of cramming multiple letters onto buttons and letting the software do it again. Time is a flat circle and all that.
- jefurii 11mo agoMy old Sony Ericsson T616 was inferior to my smartphone in so many ways, but I could tap out SMS messages on that keypad without having to look at it. It was handy to be able to take notes on long drives.
- postoplust 11mo agoSite seems down, try https://archive.is/gW1rO https://archive.is/gW1rO
- rcarmo 11mo agoHmmm. Cute. I use a Bluehand (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/08/08/1230), which is physical and has... half the keys, but that relies on chording. I might take a look at the idea of doing a 20-key physical keyboard that looks like this.
- thebeardisred 11mo agoI noticed "International patent (PCT/KR2025/099177), International Publication " Are you truly seeking a software patent for this? If so what is the plan for leveraging ownership over the patent?
- QWERTYmini 11mo agoGood question. I’m not entirely sure about its value yet. It was done to continue development without legal uncertainty, and it’s mainly a defensive measure.
- davtbaum 11mo agoJust tried it out, how do you accelerate disambiguating a double key 'nn' in 'dinner' vs alternate? This doesn't feel very usable compared to the existing keyboard to me
- Krastan 11mo agoWere you inspired by thumb key at all? https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key https://github.com/dessalines/thumb-key
- Semaphor 11mo agoDo people often thumb letters instead of swiping? And why? Coding or other stuff where you don't have natural language? For her swiping (or glide typing) is the only thing making mobile phones somewhat usable, but I also encounter people who haven't even heard of that feature.
- procinct 11mo agoI usually just type with two thumbs and can type pretty quickly. Swiping always felt a bit awkward to me because my phone is too large to use one handed with one thumb swiping, and swiping with a finger felt awkward compared to just holding my phone in both hands and typing with both thumbs. I imagine if you look at how most young people use their phone, it will mostly be the two thumb method and they will likely be very quick with it.
- Semaphor 11mo agoHm. Hadn't thought about size. I always make sure to get a phone that I can use one-handed, but I guess big phones are far more popular.
- Gys 11mo agoi tried it and think it needs at least three improvements for me to use it: normally a sentence starts automatically with a capital but not with this keyboard double space should result in a dot and a space, to end a sentence. Now I need to switch layout for a dot automatic suggestions are not enabled (or implemented)
- gxonatano 11mo agoIt strikes me as a little unimaginative to want to improve on smartphone software keyboards but (1) stick with QWERTY, a layout designed to be inefficient, and (2) require multiple taps to enter some letters. It seems like you've invented a way to make smartphone typing even more of a pain than it already is.
- patrulek 11mo agoNot usable for me because im using "snake/slide typing".